


Safe To Shore

by misanthropiclycanthrope



Category: Shetland (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Post-Season/Series 05, Pre-Slash, They Just Don't Realise It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-12-07 01:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18228368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misanthropiclycanthrope/pseuds/misanthropiclycanthrope
Summary: Alice was wrong.And maybe Jimmy is starting to realise that.





	Safe To Shore

**Author's Note:**

> That final scene was a gift. I couldn't resist scribbling something.

“Go on then, explain to me what a mood board is.”

It was worth suffering the explanation just to see the shadows recede a little further from Duncan’s eyes. Maybe Jimmy had finally lost his mind, offering to give Duncan the cash, but it was a small price to pay if it meant he stayed.

And that was somehow more important.

Rather than dwell on the reasons why, Jimmy let Duncan’s renewed enthusiasm wash over him, chase away some of the recent horrors. At some point he stopped listening, noticing only when Duncan paused in the middle of taking him through a series of blueprints that his attention had strayed.

“What?”

If Jimmy’s smile was even half as fond as he imagined, it most likely warranted Duncan's confused frown. Saved from conjuring up a response by a knock at the door, Jimmy merely shook his head and went to fetch the pizzas, collect a bottle of single malt, and by the time he returned the moment had passed.

Papers pushed aside, safe from greasy fingers, they ate in companionable silence, straight from the boxes, side by side on the sofa. Alice had been right in some respect; the nature of his job did lend itself to a solitary life, all too often pushing people away or exposing them to danger. But the people who truly mattered?

They could weather any storm.

The quiet that settled around them was easy, comfortable. No expectations, no need to fill the gap with forced conversation. By the time the pizza was gone and they each had a glass in their hand, Jimmy finally felt the tension of the past few days beginning to fade.

Duncan, however, hadn’t found it so easy to relax. There was tension in the way he held himself, and Jimmy had known him long enough to recognise when something was playing on his mind, and also to know that Duncan wasn’t a man to keep it all bottled up for long.

He wasn’t disappointed.

“How d’ye do it, Jimmy?” Duncan’s voice was quiet, his gaze lost in the amber liquid in his glass. Jimmy waited. It was a technique that worked just as effectively outside the interrogation room as in, and all the prompting Duncan needed to continue. “Every time I close my eyes I see them. Those poor people, floating there in the water.” His eyes flicked up to Jimmy, helpless. Haunted. “How do you get rid of those images?”

There was no easy answer to that, no magic solution. All Jimmy had was the truth.

“They never truly go away, the memories. Not completely.” It wasn’t what Duncan wanted to hear, his face falling like a defendant in the dock receiving his sentence. Jimmy continued, “And I don’t want them to. They're a reminder of why I do this job, what it is I’m fighting for every day.” He thought of Zezi, of how there could be triumph amid the tragedy, and Duncan was listening. _Really_ listening, for a change. “But you can push them back, find happier memories to hold in the front of your mind. So many horrible days I’d come home, share dinner with Cassie, chat about her day at school or what she’d been getting up to wi’ her mates. And that’s what I’d remember when everything else went to shit.”

Duncan nodded, a slow tilt of his chin. Jimmy could guess what he was thinking, the many regrets that had piled up in his self-destructive wake. The people he’d pushed away, either intentionally or as a consequence of his unthinking actions: Fran, Cassie, Mary…

“I suppose it beats getting blind drunk.”

“Aye,” Jimmy agreed, blunt. “That it does.”

Duncan contemplated his glass again, then set it aside and reached again for his folder. “Do you want me to take you through the cost projections?”

A hand to his arm and he stopped. “There’s plenty of time for that,” Jimmy said. He was too exhausted to take all those numbers on board, would need more fortification than a couple of fingers of Scotch before he was ready to tackle them. “Reckon I’m ready for my bed.”

“Oh. Right. Okay.” Duncan let the folder drop back to the table, suddenly lost again. He cast about the room, gaze falling on the bag he’d packed, and Jimmy suddenly feared he’d misinterpreted his statement as a hint to leave.

He didn’t want that. Not at all.

Alice was wrong. He didn’t want to be apart from everyone. What he needed was that person who kept him anchored, held him firm when the world tried to sweep him away and leave him stranded. Isolated.

He needed Duncan.

“You can unpack in the morning.”

Duncan’s shoulders relaxed a little, relieved he wasn’t being kicked out, but there was still something bothering him.

“What’s wrong?”

Duncan sighed, ran a hand through his fine hair. “I don’t think I’m gonnae be getting much sleep tonight.”

The same was probably true for Jimmy, and not something he was unfamiliar with. There was one solution that came suddenly to mind, and before he could fully think the repercussions through, he was speaking.

“You can stop in wi’ me.”

Duncan frowned, confused, wondering if he’d misheard. “What?”

“Tonight. In bed. Misery loves company, right?”

“Aye, but there’s company, and then there’s…” He gestured between them, a wave of a hand. Jimmy didn’t think either of them could have found the word that gesture signified, but he got the gist.

“Us?” he suggested.

“Aye, us.” There was amusement in Duncan’s voice, but no distaste. Jimmy wasn’t quite ready to figure out exactly what that _us_ encapsulated, but it was enough that it was there and that, somehow, Duncan felt it too.

He rose and cleared away the pizza boxes, rinsed the glasses, checked the lock on the door. Duncan hadn’t moved, and Jimmy stopped and looked at his slumped shoulders and something kicked behind his ribs.

Alice was wrong, and Jimmy wanted no more regrets.

“So, are you coming?”

A beat of hesitation, and then Duncan got to his feet, met Jimmy’s gaze with an almost shy, crooked smile, and followed Jimmy to his bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from 'Little Talks' by Of Monsters and Men. With many thanks to Meg (writingmonsters) <3


End file.
